As most of my followers know I was a teacher for 37 years and it was all at the Middle School level. Needless to say, there were some very interesting occurrences.
Now some of my former students are in their late fifties and early sixties. Many tales are told of old school days. We are far enough away from the time that everything is pretty funny.
Bob was a great storyteller and I will never forget one of the stories he told.
This took place back in the days when kids went home for lunch. Bob came back from lunch and decided he would play hooky (cut class)(skip) for the afternoon. His plan to leave the school was to go out the back door when the bell rang for kids to go the their home room for attendance.
As Bob was going down the hall all by himself , he noticed the Principal at the other end of the hall. He thought,"Oh, oh! I'm caught. He knows I'm skipping." But the principal didn't yell at Bob so Bob kept on going.
Bob was on his way to spend an afternoon fishing. He thought that since the Principal had seen him that his mother would be phoned and when Bob got home he'd hear about it from his mother. When Bob came home for supper , his mother didn't say anything. Bob thought, "Maybe he was going to get away with skipping.
So off to school in the morning and Bob was sure that the Principal would be waiting for him at the front door. Bob was not called over the intercom. "What was going on?" Everything was fine all morning.
Bob went home for lunch and everything was fine.
Back to school and to home room for attendance. For some reason or other the home room teacher was not there and the Principal was taking attendance. Bob thought , "He knows I skipped. The attendance sheet shows I was absent yesterday afternoon."
When the Principal got to Bob's name , he said,"Where were you yesterday afternoon?" Bob blurted out, "I skipped." All Bob's buddies thought he was a fool to admit that he skipped when obviously the Principal knew nothing about it. Bob's buddies knew the Principal knew nothing of Bob playing hooky. However, Bob's guilty conscience made him admit his sin.
Without looking up the Principal calmly said, "Drop by my office after school."
Bob said the punishment he got for skipping was insignificant compared to all the worrying he did about getting caught.
I've often thought about how much the Principal would laugh about this incident as he would have known nothing about the background to the story.
Now there are just as many stories where the students were unaware of what had gone on.
